War on cash begins: United States, IMF and Federal Reserve System try to deceive whole world

The epic war on cash is escalates faster than we can imagine. Every time we think that everything is over, another important breakthrough happens.

India is the most striking and recent example. The embarrassing debacle a few weeks ago in which the government ‘demonetized’ two largest denominations of cash leaving an entire nation in chaos.

There have been smaller examples. This month, the local government of the city of New Orleans decided to stop accepting cash payments from drivers at the Office of Motor Vehicles. Several Citibank’s branches have stopped using cash at all in Australia.

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has published an article last week stating that “nothing in the Indian experience gives us pause in recommending that no more large notes be created in the United States, Europe, and around the world”. According to Summers, despite the chaos in India, the United States should curtail $100 bank notes.

The conclave of the high priests of monetary policy almost invariably sings the same chorus: only criminals and terrorists use high denominations of cash.

]Ken Rogoff, Harvard professor and former official at the International Monetary Fund and Federal Reserve, recently published a book blatantly entitled The Curse of Cash. Ben Bernanke’s called it a “fascinating and important book”.

And, even it came as no suprise, a number of reviews on Amazon.com praise “brilliant” Rogoff’s “visionary concepts” in his “excellent book”.

Rogoff, like most of his colleagues, contends that large bills like the $100 or 500 euro note are only used in “drug trade, extortion, bribes, human trafficking”.

In fact, they jokingly refer to the 500-euro note as the “Bin Laden” since it’s only used by terrorists.

Some studies show that the criticism of cash has nothing to do with reality.

It turns out that countries with higher denominations of cash actually have much lower crime rates, including rates of organized crime.

The research was simple: experts took the data of the World Economic Forum, where the business climate’s interaction with the level of organized crime in a number of countries was estimated.

Switzerland, with its 1,000 Swiss franc note (roughly $1,000 USD) has the lowest level of organized crime in the world according to the WEF.

The same goes for Singapore, which has a 1,000 Singapore dollar note (about $700).Japan’s highest denomination of currency is 10,000 yen, which is worth $88, and yet Japan also has extremely low crime rates.

Same for the United Arab Emirates, whose highest denomination is the 1,000 dirham ($272).

If you analyze crime rates of countries, you find out the highest crime rate will be in counties that use low denominations of cash.

Organized crime is prevalent in Venezuela, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa and yet each of these countries has a currency whose maximum denomination is less than $30. The same applied not only to organized crime, but also to corruption and tax evasion.

Yesterday we talked about Georgia, a small country on the Black Sea, which is considered one of the most efficient places to do business, because this country has a very low level of corruption.

And yet the highest denomination note in Georgia is the 500 lari bank note, worth about $200. That’s a lot of money in a country where the average wage is a few hundred dollars per month.

Compare this to Malaysia or Uzbekistan, two countries where corruption abounds. Malaysia’s top cash note is 50 ringgit, which is worth about $11. And Uzbekistan’s 5,000 som is worth a paltry $1.57.

That is, the political and financial establishments want you to willingly get on board with the idea of abolishing or, at least, reducing cash. To do this, they are ready to spread any propaganda in order to hammer into people’s heads the idea of unbreakable interaction of high level of crime with high denominations of cash.

In short, the data doesn’t support their assertion. It’s just another hoax that will give them more power at the expense of your privacy and freedom.